We Are Family
The tension between Shari’s mother and I ratcheted up when it was time for her daughter to choose a college. Shari wanted me included in her search. Her mother didn’t. She tried to steer Shari to colleges further away from me. It really didn’t matter. We were determined that our relationship would continue no matter her final college choice. Our plans for the future always included Shari going on and finishing her education. In fact, we’d planned that when she graduated, I’d go back to school … somehow. That’s how our story would go.
In the end, a school’s proximity to me wasn’t as much a deciding factor as affordability was—another challenge for our budding relationship. Thankfully, Shari was an honors graduate and captured much in the way of scholarships and awards to help offset those costs.
Shari’s family did their best to let her know she was throwing away her future for me. I’d prove them wrong. I resolved—Prove it All Night would become prove it for the rest of my life.
I proposed.
It was a joyous Shaw family gathering at my brother Dave’s house when I officially asked Shari to marry me. It became even more celebratory when Shari said ‘Yes!’
I’d hoped announcing our engagement would help my relationship with Shari’s mom, that she’d realize Shari and I were very serious, that our love was a forever-love, and that I was in this for the long haul, no matter where the road took us.
It didn’t go the way I’d hoped initially.
Our wedding was a dream come true. Well, all except for my mother’s Courthouse Cut-ups storming the dance floor in homemade ‘Legal Eagle’ costumes to lip-sync “We are Family” at the reception. I was embarrassed. But that was Mom being Mom.
She’d had a front-row seat to all the drama—ours with Shari’s mom; Shari’s parents’ court battles; the tension between Shari and her father’s new wife, and so on. Always one to cut tension with laughter—wrapped around a not-so-subtle lesson—she felt We Are Family was apropos.
If nothing else, the Franklin and Henderson families got a taste of Shaw family antics. God help them!
In the months and years to come, tensions did begin to slowly ease with my mother-in-law. Not because of the legal eagles mind you. I think she started to see more of Shari’s and my resolve to make a life together—college and … babies. Yes, nothing brought more healing to our relationship than my mother-in-law seeing how much I loved my daughter, and my seeing how much she loved her granddaughter.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go so well with Shari’s dad’s side of the family. Although there were a few weeks of hope—a little post-marital bounce, perhaps—difficulties with Shari’s stepmother returned and amplified shortly thereafter. Eventually, she forced Shari’s dad to end their relationship.
I dare say my dear wife’s loss of her dad was even more painful than my own. He was still alive, and yet chose rather to be dead to her.
I held her as she cried herself to sleep. Watching Shari’s dream for a reconciled family story die such a painful and so totally unnecessary a death … it’s a helpless feeling.
Sometimes it might seem like it was planned
For you to roam empty hearted through this land,
Though the world turns you hard and cold
There's one thing, mister, that I know,
That's if you think your heart is stone
And that you're rough enough to whip this world alone,
Alone, buddy, there ain't no peace of mind
That's why I'll keep searching 'til I find,
My special one.
Two hearts are better than one;
Two hearts, girl, get the job done;
Two hearts are better than one.
The only remedy would be to move on to our new dreams, to writing our family story. Thankfully, I’d seen this done before. And I give thanks because I realized it starts out, We were our way forward.
To be continued …